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observed, for it is of a piece with their whole creed, and demonstrates their religion to be a system of propositions, not of personal conditions; and their God to be an abstraction, and not a person: therefore they think their church stands in books, and not in men ; in the Articles and Liturgy, not in the Bishops and Clergy. The converse of this statement may help to enlighten some. Supposing their church not to be Babylon, because her theory is sound, although the majority of the nation her children are unsound, it follows that they think all religion to consist in words, and their God also. This is really at the root of their antipathy to the present work of the Spirit in the church: it brings them into contact with a personal Spirit; and contact with such persons is just what they dread. So long as it is merely a question of words, and arguments, and disputation, and intellectual fighting, they like a new thing started on the stage of the pulpit, as they do a new entertainment on any other stage; but when the matter is wholly changed from words to persons, from sounds to realities, from shadow to substance, they can endure it no longer, and they fly from before it.

The work achieved at the Reformation has been greatly misunderstood and overrated. Protestants and Infidels have combined to extol it, but very little mention is made of it in Scripture, and chiefly to denote Protestantism as an apostasy similar to Popery. The Reformation then and now resembles those effected by various kings of Israel: some would curtail the worship of Baal, and others would even go the length of suppressing it; but none would do that which alone was effectual,resort exclusively to Mount Zion for worship. Thus, in like manner, it was good to protest against the perversion of truth which the Papists had invented, and it is good now to abolish pluralities, and be more just to the curates; but the only effectual reform-the return to the guidance and direction of the voice of the Spirit-is as much opposed by the rulers of Protestantism as the return to the Temple was by the rulers of Israel. The reform effected by the Protestants was not greater than that accomplished by the Maccabees, so vaunted by Josephus; yet God has thought neither worthy of a place in His book, but left us to seek for the history of both in apocryphal records.

Still they are both churches: the priests and bishops of both can never be less; they cannot descend to a lower grade of responsibility; they are ambassadors from God. If they have not delivered their Master's message, but a different one; if they have given a false report of Him; if they have betrayed the cause on which He sent them; still they are His ambassadors, and as such shall be judged, and, if found guilty, be consigned to a hotter fire, and to a more intolerable anguish, than the people whom they have deluded. If they will stand to their

respective offices, and receive the Spirit, they shall be honoured in them, and recognised as office-bearers in the church of God: but whilst resisting His Spirit they shall never prosper. The churches are cursed, like Michal, with barrenness, for mocking at the Spirit in the Davids, the beloved ones of the Lord: they are set aside; they are synagogues of Satan, and the pastors of them are ministers of Antichrist. We warned them that into this state they were fast passing. Some among them thought to wait until they saw a miracle: the Lord would be hindered no longer: He has set up His own church. There never was, nor ever can be, two churches of God's appointment at the same time on the earth: He hath ordained elders, pastors, evangelists, teachers, helps, prophets, and apostles, by His Spirit, and therefore of necessity He recognises no other ordination for the future: "for, the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law." The re-constitution of one by the Spirit, has ipso facto set aside the other; and it is now our duty to call incessantly for the downfall of Babylon, the opposing city, which holds the Lord's children in captivity. Moreover, it is necessary for the evangelists to warn the people every where against the idea that the Holy Spirit is now merely adding a new sect to the multitude of sects which already exist, and to proclaim that He is setting up the only church in which they can be saved. It is this truth which exasperates the false priests now, as it was that which exasperated them of old. If the Christians at Pentecost would have consented to let the crucifix be set up in the Pantheon, the temple in which every sect had its god (which is the exact model of the thing now called the church); if they would have allowed the sect of the Cloven Tongues to be added to the sect of the God of Nature, the tolerant Romans would never have tried to exterminate them by ten hot persecutions. In like manner, if we will permit the teaching of the Holy Ghost to rank merely side by side with the teaching of Wesley, and Doddridge, and Scott, and D'Oyly, and Mant; if we will allow the voice of the Holy Ghost to be equal only to the voice of Chalmers, and of B. Noel, and of M'Neile; then indeed will little opposition be excited, beyond that which usually exists between rival trades or political factions: but when we declare incessantly, that all who will be saved must join themselves to the church in which this voice is heard; that they must come out of every assembly falsely called a church, because God is not in them; that the priests must remove all creeds, confessions, articles, canons, and institutions, as bonds of membership, and take the bond of the Spirit alone; then will they storm and rage as hotly as the Neros and Domitians of old, although they have not the power to turn us into candles; for another system of iniquity has grown up under the fostering care

of the false and faithless church, even Infidelity, which will now, like the fiend of Milton, tear out and feed on the entrails of her who engendered it*.

There are many zealous ministers of religion to be met with, and we wonder they are not appalled at the reflection of the responsibility which they are under for the souls of the people committed to their care. It is impossible for them to give due account of the stewardship which they have rashly taken upon themselves, without the continual direction of the Holy Ghost. God will guide those whom He sends; but they who take upon themselves the charge, must carry on the war at their own expense. It is only in the light of the true spiritual church that we see the awful blackness of the false; and this accounts for the continual cries which the Spirit has made, through all the persons by whom he speaks, to plead and pray for the pastors. Truly their doom is dreadful!

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And what a goodly thing is a church and state combined in one polity to devote all the energies of man's whole being to the glory and service of Him whom both set forth in various completeness! Severe, indeed, will be the doom of those by whom this fabric is destroyed; and severe also is the doom of those who have so corrupted it that it has become an offence in the eyes of the holy God. Our present testimony must be against Babylon; and our difficulty and our care must be, to avoid smiting her in the spirit and with the weapons of her enemies. grieve over her because her glory is departed; they hate her for the faint glimmer that yet lingers in her shrine: we would heal her, and lay down our lives to preserve her; they would destroy her, and wreak their hands in the blood of her ministers: we would leave her in all her outward splendour, and add to her moreover the true riches of God's house; they would plunder her treasures and sack her houses, and trample under foot the only true wealth.

*This judgment is now begun the following statement by the Primate of Ireland is evidence complete and indisputable. "The evil is no longer local, but has extended itself throughout the whole of the southern dioceses. The Clergy of Kildare, Ossory, Meath, Waterford, Cloyne, and parts of Limerick, are situated precisely in a similar position with the diocese of Leighlin. Out of two years' income, no man has, scarcely in any case, received more than six months', and the majority have only received so much out of three years' income. The consequence, therefore, is, that those who have private fortunes (which, to any extent, are not very many), on account of the sudden and totally unexpected suspension of a large portion of their funds, being unable to meet their previous engagements, are fast getting into pecuniary embarrassments by borrowing and raising money, while those who have not private fortunes are actually in want of the necessaries of life. Many have hitherto lived on the bounty of their friends, but, as that is a means which cannot, and ought not, to last always, even this painful mode of relief has already failed many, and must eventually fail all."

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RECENT PUBLICATIONS ON SPIRITUAL GIFTS.

HAVING endeavoured to do justice to a few of the more influential and elaborate works on this subject, we proceed to notice some minor publications. We are happy to observe that our friends, the advocates for the "gifts of the Spirit," have been enabled to evince so much of the "graces of the Spirit;" and in the under-mentioned works (as well as those previously noticed) favourable to what we deem the truth and work of God, there are no slightings of orthodox doctrine, no remissions of practical religion, no violations of catholic love; whilst there are many aids to difficult investigation, many incentives to higher attainments, many excitations to greater holiness.

We remember being compelled, by the numerous and repeated accusations of opponents, in an early stage of our labours to challenge a comparison of the character and tendency of the writings advocating Prophetic Inquiry in general, and our Lord's Second Advent in particular, with the writings in opposition thereto; which latter, we contended, suffered by the comparison and now we have the satisfaction of making a similar appeal in favour of the advocates for the doctrine of Spiritual Gifts, and we defy our opponents to produce an equal number of publications on their side of the question, so contrary to the spirit of dogmatism, fanaticism, and uncharitableness, and so consonant with the spirit of wisdom, love, and a sound mind, as those now laid before our readers. We consider the great, the increasing, the accumulated evidence in favour of the work of the Spirit, to be the searching calls for holiness which it constantly and powerfully urges and enforces: and we implore all the advocates and friends of the work in progress, to remember and exemplify (amidst all their laudable and necessary illustrations and defences of "the word and doctrine") the Apostle's injunction, so peculiarly appropriate and pre-eminently applicable to them and to us; "What manner of persons ought we to be, in all holy conversation and godliness!"

I. The Day of Pentecost; or the Baptism of the Holy Ghost: A Treatise in three Parts: (1) The Promise contained in all the Scriptures: (2) The Fulfilment on the Day of Pentecost: (3) The Effect in the Edification of the Church. By the Rev. E. Irving, M.A. This, like the other publications of Mr. Irving, has been grossly misrepresented, to an extent and with a malevolence, precluding all attempt at regular detail and formal reply; but we trust, that, like other "castings upon the waters" of controversy, it may "be found (with some portion of the bread of life)after many days." The few following extracts are chiefly selected to remind

the friends of truth of certain practical and profitable considerations; though, at the same time, they contain ample refutation of some calumniations of Mr. Irving, especially those which make him advocate the gifts as essential to salvation, and the gifted persons as secure by infallibility.

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Though our guilt be great in having foregone this our inhe'ritance, and lost those gifts which are without repentance or 'withdrawal on the part of God; and though our loss in all ways be inestimably great, and God's glory obscured, and 'Christ's love not exhibited, and the church's union all dis'membered, and the world defeated of her proper witness, all 'through our unfaithfulness;-yet is it comfortable to know 'that we and our fathers may still have been Christians, true 'members of Christ, washed from our sins in his blood, and changed of heart, notwithstanding we have no signs of the 'Holy Ghost's baptism, nor tokens of an indwelling Father to 'produce. And this I believe to be the exact condition into 'which the church hath fallen back since the first three cen'turies; the same as the condition in which the church stood 'anterior to the day of Pentecost, with a Baptism for repentance ' and remission of sins, with a Lord's Supper for union to Christ 'and feeding on his flesh and blood; in which the Ephesian 'church was anterior to the visit of Paul," speaking and teaching diligently the things of the Lord..mightily convincing the Jews, and shewing out of the Scriptures that Jesus is the 'Christ;" yet without the baptism with the Holy Ghost, 'which it is Christ's chief office to bestow' [this prerogative of Christ's baptizing with the Holy Ghost, being the only one announced by all the Evangelists], 'the church's chief glory to 'possess, the Father's great desire to exhibit in the sight of the "world. But some will say, if we have regeneration, and union 'with Christ, we are well off; what more would we have? 'Brother, have what it pleaseth Christ to give thee. Art thou going to stint the Father and the Son? Art thou going to domineer over their givings? God forbid! Art thou to say, I will take what is needful to save me, but any the least 'work for God's glory I will not do; I will not charge myself ' with any of his affairs, but I will burden him with all mine? Oh, 'brother; this baptism with the Holy Ghost, which I am about 'to teach thee of, is the very glory of God in the sight of angels ' and of men wilt thou not be the bearer of it? Whilst thou 'heard not of it, thou couldst not desire it; but now that I am 'about to teach it thee, I beseech thee to open thine ears, for it 'is the most glorious and blessed theme of which I have ever 'yet discoursed, or of which thou hast ever yet heard. Come 'not over the course of our sweet communion with such fallacious questions as these, "But what then are we to make of

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